By Aroonim Bhuyan, IANS,
Dubai : No Indian is among crew members of two more ships hijacked off the Somali coast. And the 18 Indians who were in a ship taken by pirates earlier remained in custody in Somalia.
“Of the 25 members in the Hong Kong-registered ship Great Creation hijacked (Wednesday), 24 are Chinese and one a Sri Lankan,” Andrew Mwangura, the East African coordinator of the Seafarers Assistance Programme (SAP), told IANS over telephone from Mombassa, Kenya.
The ship was on its way to Pipavav in Gujarat from Tunisia, it is learnt. Another Greek ship was also hijacked 200 km from Somalia’s capital Mogadishu Thursday.
The Centauri, which was on its way to Kenya, is carrying a 25-member all-Filipino crew.
Meanwhile, the 22 crew members, including 18 Indians, on board the MT Stolt Valor, which was hijacked Monday from the Gulf of Aden and taken to Somalia, continued to be in confinement.
“The crew on board are safe,” Mwangura said.
Asked if the hijackers have made any demand, he said: “We haven’t received any information about the hijackers making any demand. Since it is Ramadan, information is also tough to get.”
Apart from the Indians, the crew members also include two Filipinos, a Bangladeshi and a Russian.
Asked where the ship was anchored, Mwangura said it was difficult to give the exact location as the ship was moving up and down the Somali coast.
“All I can say is that it is anchored somewhere close to the Somali coast,” he said.
These are the latest in a series of incidents in which pirates have attacked merchant vessels in the arterial shipping lane in the Gulf of Aden.
The Gulf is located between Yemen on the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia in the Horn of Africa.
It connects with the Red Sea through the Bab-el Mandeb strait in the northwest.